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Episode 851: The Squid is Fried Edition
Date March 30, 2016 Summary Ben and Sam banter about a listener-suggested expression, then answer listener emails about Albert Pujols’ impact on the Cardinals, rooting against incentive clauses, what a lack of analytics looks like, and more. Topics * Long-term impact of Albert Pujols on the St. Louis Cardinals * GMs rooting against contract incentive clauses * Fielder's choice foul balls * What does a lack of analytics look like Intro Elf Power, "Fried Out" Outro The Cranberries, "Analyse" Banter * Sam encourages listeners to sign up for this season's Baseball Prospectus fantasy game, Beat PECOTA. * Episode 846 follow-up: Sam issues a correction to his Play Index segment. Ken Griffey, Jr. did not homer after his 40th birthday. * Listener Jeff suggests that Ben and Sam use the phrase 'his squid is fried', which is the literal translation of a Mandarin Chinese idiom that means someone has been fired. * Which managers are currently on the Wobbly Chair? Email Questions * Brett: The underrated Trout question from last year had me thinking about the reverse. Are the Cardinals of the last 15 years overrated simply due to one players? They got Albert Pujols with a 13th round pick and he put up something over 80 WAR. The Cardinals received the 19th pick from the Angels which they used for Michael Wacha and the 36th sandwich pick for Stephen Piscotty. Is the Cardinals 2001-2015 run pretty much hitting the longest of long shots? A guy who challenged to be the best in the league for many years out of the 13th round?" * Jogi (Pittsburgh, PA): "The recent news of Anthony Davis missing the remainder of the NBA season and possibly missing out on a $24 million bonus if he isn't selected to any of the All-NBA teams this year got me wondering about this from a front office perspective. Do you think owners and GMs secretly root against these types of arbitrary contract provisions being reached? Since there is no salary cap in baseball as there is in other sports this is a little less black and white. In a hypothetical situation, say Andrew McCutchen has a contract clause paying him an extra $5 million if he finishes in the top 5 of the MVP ballot. I can't imagine why Bob Nutting and Neil Huntington would actively pimp his candidacy and credentials. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if Nutting released cryptic passive-aggressive statements like 'Andrew had a great season, was a valuable member of the Pirates organization even if his stolen base success rate has gone down each of the last three years and his defensive metrics aren't quite as goo as other center fielders in the National League'. So I guess the question is if a GM is told by the owner you have X amount of money to spend next offseason and there are Y amounts of millions tied up in provisional bonuses based on voting accomplishments, wouldn't a GM want these provisions not to be reached, especially since a lot of voting accomplishments are more like popularity contests and don't necessary correlate to more wins on the field from an overall team perspective?" * Alex: "I've seen a few generic articles this year about teams that place a lesser emphasis on analytics. Arizona of course with gratuitous Dave Stewart quotes and a weird one about Boston's direction under Dave Dombrowski in which owner John Henry said the team was too reliant on analytics. Scouting vs. analytics is obviously a false dichotomy but even if you indulge it and focus primarily on scouting you still need a decision making framework. After the Red Sox article came out I remember Jeff Sullivan tweeting something like, 'I honestly don't know what analytics means anymore'. If a team's not really using analytics very much however you define that, how would we see that inform their decision making process beyond writers we like hating their moves? Is it just a matter of how those teams value individual players relative to the analytics community or something bigger?" Play Index * Sam uses the Play Index to see what the worst example is in the last 10 years of a fielder catching a ball in foul territory. * There were 45 foul balls over the last decade that after being caught gave positive WPA to the hitting team. * In April 2008 Carl Crawford caught a foul ball with 1 out and a runner on third. The runner came in to score and it cost the Rays .1 WPA. Notes * Ben and Sam disagree about if you could subtract all of Pujols' career WAR from the Cardinals' production during his time on the team (if he hadn't been drafted). They agree that it would not have been a 0 WAR spot but Sam thinks that any productive player they signed to play at 1st base would have then resulted in a cheaper and less productive player at another position. * In general contract incentive clauses are relatively small compared to overall contract value for MLB players. * In Episode 493 Ben and Sam also discussed if a fielder should ever intentionally drop or not catch a foul ball. Links * Effectively Wild Episode 851: The Squid is Fried Edition * Beat PECOTA: We Dare Ya by Sam Miller Category:Episodes Category:Email Episodes